


not on our watch

by MusicalLuna



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Protective Team, Protectiveness, Team Feels, Team as Family, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 06:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17934632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna
Summary: Kidnapping attempts are just a thing that happens periodically when you're Tony Stark, but apparently the Avengers hadn't gotten the memo yet.They mind a lot more than Tony expected.





	not on our watch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightwalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/gifts).



> have a fic based off a comment @onemuseleft made once on one of my tumblr posts:
> 
> What about someone trying to kidnap Tony - like a corporate abduction kind of thing - and his security deals with it and he doesn’t see the need to tell anyone and they find out by accident and FLIP OUT into overprotective mode much to his surprise

Timothy Cran is an unbelievable asshole.

Okay, that’s a lie. It’s completely believable.

“It’s nothing personal, Tony,” Tim says, and Tony rolls his eyes.

There’s a gun pressed between the flaps of the vent at the back of his suit coat. Tony suppresses a sigh. This is what he gets for agreeing to dinner meetings with pushy manufacturing CEOs.

He has to give it to Cran for his brass balls—it’s not even seven-thirty, the sun only just starting to set and there’s a slow flow of traffic going by in a cacophony of car horns like, five feet away.

“I take guns and kidnapping very personally, Timothy.”

“It’s just business, Tony, don’t be like that.”

“Business? No. This isn’t business. I grew up in business. This is a crime.”

“It’s a fine line,” Tim says, pressing close against Tony’s back. So close he can feel his breath. Tony grimaces.

“That is a despicable attitude. The chances of us doing business just dissolved into nothing.”

When he looks up again Happy’s car is pulling in on the far side of Tim’s at the curb. He sighs. Good, this will be over soon.

Tim’s driver opens the door of Tim’s SUV and Tony swings his hips to the side, reaching back to grab hold of the butt of the gun.

Tim is quicker on the uptake than expected, and heat blasts across Tony’s hip as the gun goes off.

“Dammit!” Tim shouts.

Tony hangs on to the gun as hard as he can, pressing it against his side where it can’t get him if it goes off again, the other arm hooking around Tim’s and pulling him close so he can’t get back.

“Tony!”

“Hap!”

Happy comes barreling around the front of the SUV and hits Cran hard enough both he and Tony hit the ground. The gun goes off again, punching a hole in the door of the SUV. Several screams go up—Tony grunts as his face mashes into the sidewalk.

“Drop the gun!” Happy barks. “Drop it!”

Someone else is yelling at Tim’s driver and the maître d’ has come outside and wants to know what the hell is going on. Tim’s fingers loosen around the gun, and Happy drags him onto his back and off of Tony who hauls the gun under his own body and flicks on the safety. Then he goes limp, kicking up New York sidewalk grime with every breath.

What an end to the day.

In just a few minutes there are sirens and cops and paramedics because it turns out the first shot grazed Tony’s hip. It’s shallow, but Happy sees the blood and the hole in Tony’s pants and gets a bug up his ass. Fortunately, the paramedics agree with Tony and say he doesn’t need the hospital. They take photos and bandage him up. The cops get his statement and then Tony’s allowed to collapse into the passenger seat of the car. Happy pulled up in and go home.

He reaches over the center console with a floppy hand and pats clumsily at Happy’s thigh. “Nice work, Hap. Thanks.”

“I’m just glad you’re okay, Boss. Sorry you got banged up.”

“I’m alive, Happy, that’s the important thing. Now take me home.”

“You got it, boss.”

–

Tony takes the elevator up to the penthouse and limps his way into the bedroom. Times like this having forty thousand square feet is a pain in the ass.

“JARVIS, time?”

“Eight forty-five, sir. You are fashionably late.”

“Perfect.”

Tony strips out of his jacket, tossing it over the foot of the bed. Then he removes his pants, slit up the thigh by the paramedics and barely preserving his dignity since his boxers had been removed entirely. He takes a look at the bandage on his hip in the full-length mirror. It’s clean and white, a four by four square of gauze taped over the wound. Barely looks like anything, considering it’s from a gunshot.

He pulls on a loose pair of drawstring pants, then a t-shirt and one of his Air Force hoodies pilfered from Rhodey. He pads into the bathroom to get some OTC painkillers and swallows them, taking a drink from the faucet to wash them down. His hip aches and his head’s starting to hurt from its connection with the pavement, but it’s team night, and the best thing Tony can imagine right now is hanging with the team futzing around.

He heads down to the common floor, smiling when he strolls off the elevator to the sound of Clint moaning, “Aw, pizza.”

“Making a mess as usual?” he calls ahead.

“Look what the cat dragged in!” Clint yells back cheerfully, pushing up on the couch so he can look over the back. He’s got pizza trailing in a globby streak down the front of his shirt from a slice in one hand.

“Where have you been?” Natasha asks. She’s in the kitchen pouring herself a fizzy pink drink. Thor is at the counter next to her piling pizza onto a plate.

“My meeting ran over,” Tony says.

Steve unfolds himself from where he must have been sitting on the floor, face appearing over the back of the couch. “Are you going to eat?”

Tony pats his stomach. “Dinner meeting. I’m good, thanks.”

“What about a drink?” Natasha asks.

He points a finger at her. “Now, that, I will take.”

Natasha’s mouth purses in that mischievous Mona Lisa smile of hers and she nods.

“Where’s Bruce?” Tony asks.

“Oh, he’s in there,” Thor says through a mouthful, pointing the bitten slice out into the living room. “He is playing Resident Evil 7.”

“We’re going to watch,” Steve says, smiling at Tony as he steps into the kitchen. Tony can’t help but smile back, the stress of the last hour melting out of his body.

“No commentary allowed?”

“No commentary allowed!” Bruce confirms from the living room and Tony exchanges a grin with Steve.

“Some commentary,” Clint signs and everyone in the kitchen laughs.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Bruce calls.

“Here you go, Richie,” Nat says, coming around the island with two drinks in hand. She holds one out to Tony and hip checks him.

A strangled noise tears from Tony’s throat as pain shoots down his leg, his knee buckling. A couple of wordless shouts go up around them. Nat tries to grab for him, but she’s holding two glasses. Steve moves so fast that one second he’s by the couch and the next he’s got Tony under the arm, keeping him upright.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Tony demurs, the worst of the pain gone as quickly as it had started.

“Uh, no, clearly you are not fine,” Clint says, looking like he only needs the tiniest provocation to vault over the back of the couch.

Steve practically carries Tony over to one of the chairs in the kitchen, despite Tony’s protests that he can walk.

“When were you injured?” Thor demands, his pizza abandoned on the other side of the island.

“Tony’s injured?” Bruce says, twisting around where he’s sitting in one of the gaming chairs, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

“I tapped him and he practically collapsed.”

“Okay, that’s hyperbole. What is with you guys?” Tony pushes Steve back and then elbows Natasha when she tries to pull down the waistband of his pants. “Cut it out! Hands to yourself, Romanov.”

“Tony, what happened?” Steve puts his hands on his hips, clearly agitated. “Is this from Sunday?”

“No,” Tony says, holding out both index fingers. “No, absolutely not. I said I wasn’t hurt and I wasn’t.”

“Then what happened?”

Tony blinks at the five concerned faces surrounding him and realizes they’re not going to let him brush it off. “It—okay, so. I told you my meeting ran late.” He gets a round of encouraging nods. “Well, it ran late because the guy I met with thought he was a hotshot and tried to chivvy me into his car after dinner. He had a gun and it clipped me before I disarmed him—”

“Someone fucking SHOT you?” Clint yelps.

“He did  _what?_ ” Bruce’s voice rises, and he rushes the rest of the way into the kitchen.

“Someone  _tried_  to shoot me, Clint, keep up.”

“Wrong. You were injured. They shot you. Badly.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Fine, I was shot badly.”

Steve puts his hands out, and they both shut their mouths. “Someone tried to kidnap you? Why weren’t we notified?” He has his Captain Kill face on, which is actually pretty scary. “Protocol—”

“Put your hackles down. S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with this, it was handled in house. What do you know about protocol, anyway?”

Steve glares at him.

Next to Steve, Bruce is rubbing his fingers together in rapid circles. “You were nearly kidnapped, and you were shot. Did you go to the hospital?”

Tony’s startled when Bruce’s hand reaches for his face; he tips his head back with it, and Bruce’s thumb brushes over his beard along the line of his jaw. Tony hisses.

Everyone moves closer.

“Ow, what the hell,” Tony says, reaching up to touch, but Bruce brushes his hand away.

“You’ve got a scrape—did you hit your head?”

Tony shrugs him off. “No.”

Thor, Steve, and Natasha are all giving him looks that say they aren’t buying it.

Tony huffs and rolls his eyes. “All right, I hit the deck, but the paramedics checked me out I’m fine! I didn’t even know I had that scrape.”

“There were paramedics,” Clint says. “JARVIS, did this hit the news?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Give us the footage.”

JARVIS pulls up the news as requested, a hologram popping up next to Tony over the counter. Tony watches himself climb into the back of an ambulance with the help of the two young medics.

“We should have been notified,” Steve says voice hard and presses his hand down hard over his mouth.

“It’s not like this is the first time this has ever happened, Steve.”

The look Steve gives him the second the words have left his mouth tell Tony it wasn’t the right thing to say.

“This has happened before? Since the Avengers—?”

“Uh, yeah. Probably, I dunno, three or four times?”

Thor looks shocked. “So many times? I have been pursued in such a fashion, but never with such persistence.”

Tony shrugs. “Lot of uses for me, I guess. This is why I have a security team, guys.” He’s not totally sure why this has got them so worked up, but he’s not above taking advantage. He’s tired. “So, uh,” he rubs one eye. “I was kind of looking forward to taking it easy tonight, can we, uh…?”

The severe expressions on Clint, Natasha, and Steve’s faces soften. Natasha pats Tony’s knee. “Of course we can.”

“Resident Evil 7?” Tony says hopefully to Bruce, and Bruce’s tense shoulders relax.

“Yeah.” Bruce lets out a slow breath and nods.

Steve moves like he’s going to try and lift Tony and Tony holds a palm out toward him. “Ah ah ah, no way, Cap.”

Steve gives him a sullen look, but steps back. Tony can feel all their eyes on him as he makes his way toward the couch, even as they get moving again too.

Natasha sets Tony’s drink down on the coffee table in front of him and then sits down next to him—on the uninjured side—settling against his body.

Bruce joins them next, going back to his gaming chair, though not without casting a few glances Tony’s way.

Thor flops into one of the other chairs with his pile of pizza and Steve finally sits down on the floor, setting his own plate of pizza on the coffee table.

Tony sighs and settles in, content, as Bruce unpauses the game.

–

Tony notices the others watching him more closely after that. If he’s late, they call to check in on him, and at public events they position themselves around him in a way they didn’t use to before, making sure he never gets isolated. It’s cute.

Happy complains about it because they keep blocking his sight lines.

Apparently, there’s more to it though, which Tony finds out when a month after the Cran incident when Hammer sends a couple of goons to pull him into the employee-only corridors at a gala. They’re shoving him down the hall when Mjölnir smashes through the next door with Thor on the other end and they all skid to a stop.

Tony blinks. “Thor. How—”

Steve plows through the shattered door, Natasha hot on his heels. Before Hammer’s idiots can even get their guns up, Natasha hits them both with the Bites, and they go down in a flurry of twitching limbs.

Thor drops Mjölnir on one of them, and Steve plants his boot on the back of the other, his face flushed and his mouth tense.

“Are you all right?” Natasha asks as she gets her breath back.

Tony looks down at the bodies and rubs his hand lightly over his forearm, which aches a little from where one of the goons had been gripping it. “I’m fine—”

Happy bursts through the door at the far end of the hallway. “BOSS!” He makes it halfway down the hall toward them before he fully takes in the scene and slows, huffing out, “Oh.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, looking contrite but determined, “we cut in on your territory, Happy.”

Meanwhile, Thor has moved in closer to Tony, one of his huge hands coming up to turn Tony’s face this way and that with unexpected gentleness. “Are you certain you are not injured?”

Tony looks down at his body, thrown off by the entire situation. “Yeah, I—they didn’t hurt me. Bruised my arm maybe.”

“Good,” Thor says and wraps an arm around Tony’s shoulders, pulling Tony in against his side.

“What are you guys doing here?” Tony asks, brain finally starting to catch up.

Natasha is kneeling on the floor getting cuffs on one of the goons while Happy works on the other. She glances up to give him a look like he’s ridiculous.

Steve steps in closer and gives Tony the same once over Thor had, although he keeps his hands to himself. “JARVIS said you’d left the expected location parameters.”

Tony blinks. “You’re using my own AI to keep tabs on me?”

Steve and Thor both look a little chagrined, but Natasha stands up, and her expression is unrepentant. “You’ve almost gotten kidnapped five times since we’ve known you, Tony. We weren’t just going to let that happen.”

“Excuse me,” Happy says, annoyed, as Tony replies, “The key word there is ‘almost’.”

Natasha shrugs easily. “None of us are good at sitting back and letting other people handle things. No offense, Happy.”

“It’s not that we don’t think you do a good job,” Steve says to him, apologetic.

Thor squeezes Tony’s hand. “We care too much to sit idly by when there is something to be done.”

Happy sighs. “It was bad enough being Iron Man’s bodyguard. Now I’m up against the Avengers too? I’m gonna have a reputation for the world’s most useless bodyguard.”

“Hey, Pepper still needs you,” Tony says, and that seems to mollify him.

Then he looks at his three teammates and the bodies on the floor at their feet. This has been part of his normal for so long he’d forgotten how other people might feel about it, and he’s weirdly thrilled that his teammates have been keeping such a close eye on him since they found out. Like, it’s a long term thing. They’re going to keep watching out and keep coming after him.

“Hey, thanks,” he says before he can think too hard about it and all three of them look up at him. Natasha smiles and Steve reaches out and squeezes Tony’s shoulder lightly.

“We have each other’s backs, Tony.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, a smile pulling up the corners of his mouth. They really do, don’t they?


End file.
